Were these students simulating a lynching? Was it a schoolyard rivalry gone too far? Is it a form of bullying to the opposing team? A racist portrait?

The students involved have since been suspended from school for three days and barred from competing in the district wrestling tournament, therefore ending their chance of any post-season action. Through a lawyer, they have issued an apology to their opponents in Paulsboro for offending them, and said they hadn’t intended to disparage anyone with the picture.

Many individuals who saw the photo, however, saw a troubling depiction of an event that occurred way too often just less than 50 years ago in this country. They saw a black dummy hanged by a rope, surrounded by white teenagers, reminiscent of a Southern lynching.

“I would hardly think they didn’t have some idea of what sort of result that would come about. It’s very upsetting in the field of education, especially in this month of all months,” said Tom Lane, former superintendent of Bridgeton schools, referencing February as Black History Month. “You see something like this, you just wonder what progress we’ve made.”

Whether this was the students’ intention or not, the imagery should have been evident to them, according to Lynn Azarchi, executive director of the Kidsbridge Tolerance Museum, in Trenton.

“We are doing a lousy job of teaching kids sensitivity, awareness and most importantly, empathy,” she said. “This is going to happen more often because we are not teaching our kids well.”

Sue Schaffer, who teaches seventh and eight grade language arts in Paulsboro, said she always tries to incorporate the Civil Rights movement into her lessons in February and its something that teachers should be doing across the curriculum, not just in history classes.

“It’s important because you don’t want history to repeat itself. They need to be educated enough to know where we came from so we don’t go there again,” she said.

Despite the color of the dummy, the kids should have been taught the history behind such actions and should have thought about how that imagery would affect the kids in Paulsboro, Azarchi believes. For her, the instance is a case of bullying and intimidation that was preventable.

“We wag our fingers at kids and say ‘don’t be a bully. Don’t be mean. Don’t do these things,’” she said. “Rather than wagging the fingers, we should be showing them how they made people feel. Angry, sad, disappointed. It’s all about empathy. This is a teaching moment.”

Most importantly, Azarchi would like to see more kids being taught the benefits of being “upstanders” and standing up when they see their friends doing something wrong.

“It wasn’t eight kids that had this idea. I would guess there was one or two kids. Even one of those kids could have said ‘this is a bad idea,'" she said.